purist

American  

[pyoor-ist] / ˈpyʊər ɪst /

noun

1. a person who advocates the strictest application of the principles or standards in any field, or who insists on purity in language, style, etc..

   When making hip-hop he began as a purist, putting most of the focus on solid lyrics and less on working with the music and production.

2. Fine Arts. Often Purist a practitioner of purism, an early 20th-century style of art characterized by the use of simple geometric forms and images evoking manufactured objects.

   The Purists saw their painting as the next step in the evolution of modern art after Cubism, which they found too decorative.

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adjective

1. relating to or being a purist.

   The purist view of theater design is that if there is a column or pillar anywhere, there is a problem.

Other Word Forms

• hyperpurist
  noun
• nonpuristic
  adjective
• puristic
  adjective
• puristical
  adjective
• puristically
  adverb
• unpuristic
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of purist

First recorded in 1695–1705; from French puriste, equivalent to pur(e) ( def. ) + -ist ( def. )

Explanation

A purist is a person who insists on following certain rules exactly — to the letter. If you're a language purist, it upsets you to hear someone using bad grammar. Most purists are fans of tradition and traditional rules, always sticking to those rules themselves and often instructing other people to do the same. To be a purist is to be a kind of perfectionist — a baking purist might feel that cookies made without a certain brand of chocolate chips are vastly inferior, for example. The noun purist originally referred specifically to language use, and it comes from the Latin purus, "clean, clear, or unmixed."

Example Sentences

Thankfully, Purist Collective’s bottles stand out in a couple of key areas.

From The Verge • Nov. 8, 2021

Throughout their coronavirus journey, the parents have been sharing frequent updates via “Prime Time” and Purist, where Cristina Cuomo recently championed a questionable treatment approach: bathing in a Clorox-water solution.

From Los Angeles Times • May 5, 2020

Purist fans of the understated movie musical “Once” may never really accept the more outgoing stage adaptation, but seeing it live definitely packs its own pleasure.

From Washington Post • Feb. 12, 2019

Grab bars from Kohler’s Purist line, set at right angles that aesthetically underline the room’s linearity, are never out of reach.

From The Wall Street Journal • Aug. 23, 2018

The Purist, therefore, does not mend nature, but 190 receives from nature and from God that which is good for him; while the Sensualist fills himself “with the husks that the swine did eat.”

From The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3), by Ruskin, John